The Beatles: Butcher LP Covers and How A 1966 Album Actually Lost Money

It was very confusing being an American Beatles fan in the sixties. Apparently. I have the disadvantage from a perspective point of view of a) being British and b) having been born in 1970…

In the years up to 1966, Capitol in the USA had a rather cavalier attitude to albums. Rather than promoting them as statements of Art by Artists, they favoured a strategy of maximising the amount of product (and thus cash) they could get, by callously cutting tracks off completed albums and holding them back.

Whilst I have some sympathy with this (there’s a couple of Red Hot Chilli Peppers albums that I would take the surgeon’s knife to pretty strongly for example), when it comes to The Beatles this seems to have been a pretty cynical approach.

So whilst The Beatles released 14 songs per album on some UK releases, and frequently left singles off albums, Capitol kept the tracks down to ten or eleven per album, kept those album tracks back, added some singles and B-sides and converted them into more “new” albums. Thus US albums include titles unheard of the in UK such as “Something New”, “Beatles ’65” “The Early Beatles“, “Beatles VI” and finally “Yesterday…And Today”.

From the back cover of Yesterday and Today – some of those US Beatles albums

It also means that a US issue of Revolver has only eleven songs, missing out “I’m Only Sleeping”, “And Your Bird Can Sing” and “Doctor Robert” – all coincidentally John Lennon’s songs. Why? Because all of these had been sent across to the USA to appear on the mish mash of Yesterday…And Today, alongside Rubber Soul songs “Drive My Car”, “Nowhere Man”, “If I Needed Someone” and “What Goes On”, plus Help’s “Yesterday” and “Act Naturally”. With the addition of already released single “Day Tripper” / “We Can Work It Out”, Capitol figured they had another money making Beatles album to release to the American public.

However Yesterday…And Today remains the only album Capitol actually initially lost money on, despite the fact that it topped the charts for most of the summer of 1966. The reason was because of the cover, which has since become the most sought after and collectible Beatles album.

On a recent US holiday, I picked up a copy of the album, so here’s the story:

The cover originated from a photo shoot with photographer Robert Whitaker and featured the Fab Four posing with huge smiles and butcher’s coats holding slices of meat and beheaded dolls. It’s an extraordinary photo, especially considering the controversy that had begun to surround The Beatles.

In 1966, The Beatles had already begun to experience a minor backlash. John’s comments about the future of organised religion to Maureen Cleave of London’s Evening Standard (“We’re more popular than Jesus now. I don’t know which will go first – rock n roll or Christianity”) had been reprinted out of context in US teen magazine Datebook so that John appeared to be claiming The Beatles “were bigger than Jesus Christ“. (As an aside, he did have a point either way. The Beatles attracted 55,600 to Shea Stadium, whereas Jesus managed 5,000 for his biggest gig, although Jesus’ catering was apparently far better. “The taste of the fish blended really well with the fresh loaves” said one Harden’s reporter).

Meanwhile a world tour ended in a Philippines farce after The Beatles ignored a request to play at Imelda Marcos’ Garden Party and had to flee the country under attack from affronted Marcos supporters.

At Capitol’s request The Beatles were to supply a cover for a proposed LP which was to be released in support of their forthcoming American tour.

According to Bob Spitz’s “The Beatles – The Biography”, Brian Epstein put them in touch with Whitaker who was “a bit of a surrealist” and admirer of German artist Hans Bellmer, author of a controversial book Die Pupp, which featured pictures of dismembered toy dolls. Whitaker told the boys he had a concept that would depict “How he, as an outsider, viewed the world’s perception of the Fab Four”. This appealed to The Beatles as they wanted to blur their innocent image.

Hans Bellmer’s Art – image via Wikipedia

The photo shoot in Chelsea at Whitaker’s studio had the Beatles posing in a number of odd ways: holding sausage links in front of a young girl, George banging nails into John’s head, and then dressing the Beatles in butcher’s smocks holding the dismembered babies and bloody bits of raw meat.

The Beatles loved the results. Especially John and Paul. Epstein approved the butcher shot for the cover, perhaps because he felt the record was “not a major release”.

When Capitol label president Alan Livingston demanded an explanation from Epstein he was told “it’s their comment on war”. Epstein refused to reconsider, and going against his instincts, but mindful that he couldn’t afford a confrontation with his biggest stars Livingston ordered the cover go into production.

It was only when DJs and record dealers began calling to complain did Capitol take the decision to recall the 750,000 sleeves that had been printed. “Word came back very fast that the dealers would not touch it. They would not put the album in their stores”. Capitol issued a press release that said “The original cover, created in England, was intended as “Pop Art” satire. However a sampling of opinion in the United States indicates that the cover design is subject to misinterpretation. For this reason, and to avoid any possible controversy or undeserved harm to the Beatles image or reputation, Capitol has chosen to withdraw the LP and substitute a more generally acceptable design”.

The “Trunk” cover of The Beatles’ Yesterday and Today stereo album

John Lennon was unhappy at the cover being banned, saying the sleeve was “as relevant as Vietnam”. However, Spitz claims that The Beatles did quietly agree to substitute another Whitaker photograph as they were mindful of forthcoming record contract negotiations.

According to Philip Norman’s Shout, the sleeve was axed at a cost of $200,000. “A special staff spent one weekend extracting each of the 750,000 discs from its Butcher sleeve and inserting it into one hastily improvised round a picture of The Beatles leaning on a cabin trunk. In many cases, to save trouble, the new sleeve was simply pasted over the old”.

You can see where the cover was pasted onto the sleeve (top left corner) on my copy of Yesterday and Today

First State: The original Butcher cover – one that for whatever wasn’t recalled (or returned by the store who knew a future collectors item when they saw one) and wasn’t therefore either destroyed or pasted over.

Second State: A trunk cover that still has the Butcher cover underneath – unpeeled. You can see the Butcher cover underneath.

Third State: A Butcher cover that was pasted over with the “trunk” cover, but has since been unpeeled to reveal the Butcher cover underneath.

All three of these are expensive and rare. Many “trunk” copies have been damaged over the years by fans trying to see whether a Butcher cover is underneath – at the same time destroying their value to collectors. A first state cover (in mono) sold for $39,000 in 2006. There’s a second state cover on eBay right now for $1,000. Third State? There’s one you can pick up for $110. It looks awful.

For those of us not made of money, you can still buy a copy of “Yesterday…And Today” – with the trunk cover. Whilst not as exciting as the above mentioned, it is much less expensive – and retains the advantage of having the same record inside the sleeve. What I like about my copy, aside from the more reasonable price I paid, is that the cover was pasted on to the front of the album, whilst the reverse is pre-printed – evidence that it is an early pressing (later covers were printed direct onto the sleeve) and indeed of the whole story. A previous owner has even had a scratch at a corner – presumably to see if there is a Butcher cover underneath (there isn’t).

You can see how someone has tried to peel the cover (top right) in this close up photo

All of this is lots of fun, but the real butchery of course was by Capitol Records – butchering the track listings of Rubber Soul and Revolver. The next time The Beatles released a record (Sgt Pepper) the album had grown into an art form. The record made it to the USA intact…although it wasn’t until the recent 2009 re-issues that America got to enjoy The Beatles in the same way as the UK…

Did you know that early versions of Led Zeppelin’s LP In Through the Out Door inner sleeve has a black dotted image of an ashtray on white paper. Hidden in the dots are water color paints that can be spread with a damp napkin. You can basically ‘paint’ the image if you stay within the lines.

Maybe you can do a post about that sometime. (…just give me a ‘shout-out’) 🙂

On a similar theme, the American hard rock band Angel suffered from record label interference when it came to the originally intended artwork for the cover of their fifth studio album, which was released in 1979.

The album was to have been titled ‘Bad Publicity’. The front cover was shot in a room at the infamous Hyatt House Hotel on Sunset Boulevard. The band were depicted in street clothes – the group were usually only photographed in their all-white stage attire – playing cards, drinking and accompanied by women, a dwarf and someone seemingly dressed as a stereotypical reporter. A Police Officer was bursting in on them in the forefront of the photograph.

The rear cover featured excerpts from some of the less encouraging press reviews.

The album went into production, only for Casablanca boss Neil Bogart to throw a fit when he saw the cover and refused to release the record until the cover was changed.

Despite Bogart’s order to have every copy of the album cover destroyed, a handful of promo copies did survive the shredder or furnace. I’m aware of at least 10 in existence, including my own. Whenever a copy has come up for sale it usually sells for around £300 to £500. I feel fortunate to have paid £50 for mine in 1989. Some opportunist tried selling the cover only on e-Bay a couple of years ago for over $10000. Naturally, there were no takers.

The album was eventually released under the title of ‘Sinful’ (interestingly that word appeared in a headline in the lower left corner of the ‘Bad Publicity’ front cover and was repeated on the upper left of the rear) with a stock Barry Levine shot of the band in their stage clothing that has, to be fair, become more iconic than the original idea. However, the first US pressing of ‘Sinful’ was released still with the labels on the vinyl bearing the original title of ‘Bad Publicity’, That’s how much of an eleventh hour decision it had been to ditch the original cover. Some of these were later pasted over by Casablanca with ‘Sinful’ labels.

The British Glam band Pet Hate recreated the ‘Bad Publicity’ shoot (and album title) for a record released in the 80s through the Heavy Metal Records label.

When the Angel back catalogue was eventually released in the US in the early 90s on CD, PolyGram saw fit to include the original front and rear art of ‘Bad Publicity’ as part of the fold out booklet. A nice touch.

Great story. If anyone was going to know stories about Angel it was going to be you!
On a similar subject I seem to remember a Slayer single cover that was withdrawn (Mandatory Suicide), but the record company allowed fans who had bought the single to send off for the original cover in the mail. A good compromise all round.

Not quite accurate about American and Canadian covers being printed onto the sleeve. In the vast majority of cases the album sleeve was blank cardboard, and two paper slicks were pasted front and back. Now you do this one of two ways: have the larger slick on the front, folded over the edges and then have a smaller slick on the back.Or vice versa. Most companies had the visible seams on the back since it looked nicer in the record bin, but a few times the seams were on the front. Often the positioning of the front slick was such that the company could use one print run for stereo and mono. “Stereo” would appear at the top. If the record was mono it would be covered by the back slick — not as elegant as Decca in the UK. It punched a hole in the back sleeve to allow the inner bag to show through. If the bag was blue: stereo, red was mono

My understanding has always been that capital records trashed an unknown amount of 1st state butcher covers to the landfill. Then someone with a brilliant idea at capital, instead of making new covers, they would paste the new slick over the butcher. meaning there are a lot less than 750,000 copies of this album.

Thanks for your comment. I’d be interested to hear if there is any corroboration of that – it would certainly make those butcher covers all the more scarce. In the Beatles bios I have read perhaps unsurprisingly they focus on the band themselves rather than the detail of what happened to the LPs.